Depressive disorder, a disease manifested as depression, belongs to the scope of emotional mental disorder in mental diseases. The manifestation of depressive disorder can be summarized as “three lowness”, i.e. low emotion, slow thinking and low spirits. The core symptom of depressive disorder is low emotion, and the psychological symptoms are anxiety, self-accusation, self-guilt, delusion or hallucination, attention and memory deterioration, suicidal tendency, etc.; and the somatization symptoms thereof are sleep disorder, reduced appetite, body weight loss, sexual hypoactivity, dispiritedness and lassitude, etc. Depressive disorder is a common and frequently-occurring disease threatening human health. In China, the morbidity of emotional mental diseases is 0.76%. The morbidity of depressive disorder is very high, however, the pathogenesis thereof is still not known clearly now. A conventional viewpoint is that the pathogenesis of depressive disorder is related to the abnormity of intracerebral monoamine neurotransmitters, including 5-HT(5-hydroxytryptamine), acetyl choline and catecholamines, noradrenaline and epinephrine.
In 1950s, the first developed antidepressant was monoamine oxidase inhibitor, which was replaced by tricyclic antidepressant due to severe toxic and side effects, and the latter become the first-line drug for depressive disorder treatment worldwide in 1950s. The development of selective 5-HT(5-hydroxytryptamine) reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) is compelling in recent years, and has superior pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic characteristics, as well as good therapeutic effect, small toxic and side effects, simple administration and fast development. However, Most of these drugs, due to their characteristics, have certain side effect on central nervous system and vegetative nervous system with gastrointestinal tract reaction.
20(S)-protopanoxadiol is one of the most important aglycones of protopanaxadiol ginsenosides, and ZL 200610027507.1 discloses the application of 20(S)-protopanoxadiol in inhibition of depression, but the effect thereof still needs to be further improved. If an improved protopanoxadiol derivative with a unique structure which shows stronger anti-depression pharmacological activity in pharmacological experimental results, is developed, it will have wide development and application prospect in preparation of drugs for preventing or treating depression mental diseases.